Guitars Of The Week:
The Week of January, 10 2000 through January, 17 2000

Baritom Classic
Swamp Ash
Tobacco Fade

So, there I was just minding my own business when a sound so beautiful and rich came gushing out of Tom’s office. I spilled my milk rushing into to see what was producing this beautiful “plugged-in-acoustic” guitar tone. It was literally the biggest sound of this type I have ever heard. As I rounded the corner, there was Tom plugged into both his electric and acoustic amps. He was holding the first fully X-bridge equipped Baritom Classic.

The tone was just giant and when he flipped the X-bridge selector switch to get both electric and acoustic sounds blended together the sound got even bigger. Wow! You have to hear this one. You will not believe how big and yet clear this guitar sounds. This phenomenon is due to Baritom’s extra-long 28 5/8th-scale length. It allows the Baritom to be tuned lower than standard, run a larger string gauge while retaining a natural playing feel and sound bigger than fat but with amazing clarity.

Once you begin to play a Baritom Classic you cannot believe all the things you find to do with this specialized instrument. As was stated about the Baritom Classic in “Guitar of the Week” November 28, 1999, “I use to think that this was absolutely the best guitar you could ever play if you tune down because the sound is so huge yet it possesses a sweet clarity that will not allow it to be buried in the mix. I was wrong! Well maybe not wrong but limited in my thinking. This guitar not only does all that stuff but it is also the “other guitar” you’ll want to use in many of your normally tuned songs as well. If the other guitar player in the band is playing one of these, it can add such depth and dimension. I can’t begin explain how big it makes a song sound. This type of effect can be heard in a tune such as The Beatles’ “Back In The U.S.S.R.” I’m just sure Paul would love one. There’s still more! You should hear this create a “Heavy Metal/Hard Rock” or any giant, distorted tone. It not only has the low B string of a 7-String Guitar but all the strings are bigger sounding so the whole guitar is way-huge sounding.” Now, imagine all this with an X-bridge added to the guitar. The versatility goes way up. It is quite possible that you could rule the earth with this one—well maybe I overstated that a bit.

This Baritom Classic is painted Tobacco Fade-- a very popular color. The body wood is swamp ash, which helps create a clear and sparkling tone. The neck wood is maple with a pau ferro fingerboard, which lends a bit of upper-mid snap. The VA1 and VA1R pickups were chosen for the neck and middle positions. These are truly great sounding vintage pickups. You really need to hear them with the larger gauge strings and lower tuning—big, big vintage tone. The bridge pickup is the higher output, VA3, which replicates the tone of our TV3 vintage pickup in our Hollow T Classic guitar. So nice.

Eddie Burman at The Music Loft in Raleigh, NC is a very lucky man for he will be the keeper of this magnificent instrument. You must give him a call and get him to give you a description of how he thinks this Baritom Classic really sounds. You’d better hurry though, I happen to have it on good authority that this guitar is the dream guitar of a very fine musician.